COTTONWOOD[9]
(Populus Deltoides)

Eleven species of cottonwood are found in the United States, if all trees of the genus Populus are classed as cottonwoods. It is not universally admitted, however, that they should be so classed. The common cottonwood is the most widely known of all of them, but it is recognized under different names in different regions, viz.: Big cottonwood, yellow cottonwood, cotton tree, Carolina poplar, necklace poplar, broadleaf poplar, and whitewood.

Its range covers practically all of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It is rare or missing in eastern New England and southern Florida, and most abundant in the Mississippi valley, and there the largest trees are found. Some exceed 100 feet in height, and four in diameter. Extreme sizes of 140 feet in height with diameters of from seven to nine have been reported. The cottonwood was a frontier tree on the western plains when settlers began to push into the region. It grew as far west as any hardwood of the eastern forests, and was found beyond meridian 100, which was supposed to be the boundary between the region of rains and the semi-arid country. The cottonwood clung to the river banks and to islands in the rivers, and by that means escaped the Indian’s prairie and forest fires which he kindled every year to improve the range for the buffalo. It is supposed that most of the open country east of meridian 100 was originally timbered, and that the Indians destroyed the forests by their long-continued habit of burning the woods and prairies every year to improve the pasture. Cottonwood was the longest survivor, because it grew in damp places where fires did not burn fiercely. Black willow was its most frequent companion on the western outposts of the forests.

The cottonwood was fitted for holding its ground, and pushing forward. Its light seeds are carried by millions on the wind and by water. The tree bears large quantities of cotton (hence the name), and when the wind whips it from the tree, seeds are caught among the fibers and carried along, to be scattered miles away.

This tree was not much thought of by eastern people who had plenty of other kinds of wood, but pioneers on the plains who had a hard time to get any, found cottonwood useful. It made fences, corncribs, stables, cabins, ox yokes, and fuel. The first canoes made by white men on the upper Missouri river were of cottonwood. Lumber cut from this tree is inclined to warp and check unless carefully handled, and this prejudiced it in the eyes of many; but difficulties of that kind were easily mastered, and instead of being a neglected wood it became popular. Some of the largest early orders came from Germany. Vehicle makers in this country employed it for wagon beds, as a substitute for yellow poplar when that wood’s cost advanced. Manufacturers of agricultural implements were pioneers in its use, it being excellent material for hoppers, chutes, and boxes.

Cottonwood weighs 24.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is approximately the weight of white pine. It has about the stiffness of white oak, but only about eighty per cent of white oak’s strength, and fifty per cent of its fuel value. The wood is very porous, but the pores are small, usually invisible to the naked eye. The medullary rays are small and obscure. The appearance of the wood is not improved by quarter-sawing. The summerwood forms a thin, dark line, so faint that the annual rings are often scarcely distinguishable. The tree is generally a rapid grower; heartwood is brown, sapwood lighter, but as a whole, this tree produces white wood.

The annual cut is declining. It was little more than half in 1910 what it was in 1899. Some regions where large trees were once abundant now have few. The sawmill output in 1910 for the United States—including several species—was 220,000,000 feet. The veneer cut was 33,000,000 feet, log measure; the slack cooperage staves, chiefly for flour barrels, numbered 44,000,000; and pulpwood amounted to about 18,000,000 feet. The lumber cut was largest in the following states in the order named: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Minnesota. The tree was lumbered in forty-one states.

Cottonwood is a standard material in several lines of manufacturing. It is made into nearly every kind of box that goes on the market, from the cigar box to those in which pianos are shipped. Manufacturers of food products are particularly anxious to procure this wood, and it is one of the best for woodenware, such as dough boards, ironing boards, and cloth boards. It is used by manufacturers of agricultural implements, interior finish, bank and office fixtures, musical instruments, furniture, vehicle tops, trunks, excelsior, saddle trees, caskets and coffins, and numerous others.

There is no danger that cottonwood will disappear from this country, but it will become scarce. It is being cut much faster than it is growing, and is losing favor as a planted shade and park tree, because of its habit of shedding cotton in the spring and its leaves in the early autumn.

Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla) is known also as river cottonwood, black cottonwood, downy poplar, and swamp poplar. Its range describes a crude horseshoe, running from Rhode Island down the Atlantic coast in a narrow strip, where it is neither abundant nor of large size; touching northern Florida; running westward to eastern Texas and thence up the Mississippi basin and the Ohio river to southwestern Ohio. There is nothing handsome about its appearance with its heavy limbs and sparse, rounded crown. In the eastern range the average height is probably not more than fifty feet but in the fertile Mississippi valley it reaches 100 and has a long merchantable bole three feet in diameter. Its bark is rugged, dirty-brown and broken into loose, conspicuous ridges. It is easily distinguished from the other cottonwoods by the orange-colored pith in the twigs. The buds are rounded and red and have a resinous odor. Sawmills and factories never list this wood separately. It comes and goes as cottonwood. Its uses are the same as those of common cottonwood. The two species grow in mixture throughout the entire range of the swamp cottonwood.

Texas Cottonwood (Populus wislizeni) is a rather large tree and is the common cottonwood in the upper valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and western Texas. The yellowish color of the twigs is apt to attract attention. The wood is used about ranches and occasionally a log finds its way to local sawmills; but its importance is limited to the region where it grows.

Mexican Cottonwood (Populus mexicana) extends its range north of the Mexican boundary into southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. It is abundant in Mexico where the largest trees are eighty feet high and three or four in diameter. It is smaller near the northern limits of its range, and there it hugs the banks of mountain streams. Stockmen use the trunks, which are usually small enough to be called poles, to make fences and sheds.

Narrowleaf Cottonwood (Populus angustifolia)is a mountain species which manages to live in the semi-arid regions from the Rocky Mountains of Canada to Arizona, but is seldom found below an elevation of 5,000 feet, and it ranges up to 10,000. Trunks are eighteen inches or less in diameter, and fifty or sixty feet high. The seeds are larger than those of most other cottonwoods. It being a semi-desert species, its wood is appreciated where it is accessible, and it has local uses only.

Lanceleaf Cottonwood (Populus acuminata) is a small tree with limited range, growing in the arid region along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, southward from the Black Hills. It is found also north of the Canadian border. It is usually fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, and thirty or forty feet high. Trunks seldom go to sawmills, but some local use is made of the wood. Trees are occasionally planted for shade in towns of western Nebraska and Wyoming.

Fremont Cottonwood (Populus fremontii), called white cottonwood in New Mexico, but elsewhere simply cottonwood, grows from western Texas to California, and as far north as Utah and Colorado. It sometimes attains a diameter of five or six feet and a height of 100. The Indians in New Mexico formerly made rude, clumsy ox carts of this wood, without a scrap of iron or other metal in the vehicles. One of the carts is preserved in the National Museum, Washington, D. C. The wood is tough and light, but it is dull white, with no attractive figure. Even the annual rings are hardly distinguishable. Logs are occasionally sawed into lumber, and farmers in western Texas make wagon beds of it.